10 Years of VNA

Tag Archives: show

After completing monumental murals in his homeland in Australia, Berlin-based artist Reka is returning to the UK for a new solo show titled ‘Aus Berlin’ at That Art Gallery in Bristol opening on Thursday 18 May.

Surrealist, abstracted creatures emerge from the depths of Reka’s mind, communicating through strong lines, dynamic movement and bold colours. These figures haunt the laneways over three continents, clambering up brick walls and giving the urban environment a literal fresh coat of paint. Their personalities mirror those of their often-decrepit metropolitan context, opening a dialogue between the viewer and their surroundings.

With influences in pop culture, cartoons and illustration, Reka’s style has become known for its fusion of high and low art. This style emerged from his Pop-Art-influenced logo design background, featuring simple but striking lines and colour ways.

With a diligent, almost obsessive attention to detail, Reka has created a new body of work featuring his signature characters and lines on canvas as well as on found objects, often sourced walking the train lines at night or exploring abandoned warehouses.

His art sits somewhere between humorous and menacing, contrasting the two opposing feelings in a way that is unique to his vision. These pseudo-human forms are recognisable but isolating, playful yet eerie. This is Reka’s art: a paradox between sharp design and graffiti, held together with a fuse of passion and spray paint.

Bidding is well underway and we look forward to raising thousands for Macmillan Cancer Support. All items are available for worldwide shipping, tracked and insured, but we cannot calculate this until we have the winning bidder’s details so please don’t be put off by misleading info on the listings! Hit us up with any questions – info@verynearlyalmost.com or via artFido

All items are up online here and bidding closes at 12 midday Monday 1st May (GMT):

Special shout outs to the Macmillan Cancer Support team, Eve, Jay and Lauren at StolenSpace, the superhuman Andy Vasy for his stellar work getting the work on the walls, Simon at Luardos for the delicious tacos, James Grant for shooting these great pics below, Soffles for providing tasty snacks and the legends from Sailor Jerry for pumping out wicked cocktails all night long.

French artist Lek, member of the DMV crew, known for his exploration of the graffiti letters and abstract forms, is returning to Paris for his solo show at Galerie 42b. On 3rd November the artist will present a series of works on canvas painted during his one year residency at the prestigious French Academy in Rome at the villa Medici.

A couple of weeks’ ago, the Prefab77 crew hit London with their first solo show in the big smoke. The show at Hoxton Gallery, presented by Breaks, drew a large crowd on a nice warm evening to view an pretty eclectic collection of works that spanned painting, screen printing, engraving and metal work.

It was brave move to not simply show their more ‘signature’ style (which I immediately associate with monochromatic, larger pieces in the street) but by and large it worked, particularly some of the pieces on wood. The signature style was still in evidence and any work that manges to reference AC/DC songs is always a good thing.

Newcastle-based Prefab77 are hitting London this week with their first solo show in the city, ‘Damned If You Do, Bored If You Don’t’ at Hoxton Gallery. To mark the occasion the launch will have some mystery giveaways to the early birds through the door.

For the show, the collective, know for their large black and white pieces have expanded to mix traditional techniques such as screen printing, with laser engraving, CNC routing and metalwork. In their own words:

“We want to explore the iconography and the power of the female form in traditional art, music and fashion, using our familiar ‘Groupies’. Throughout the ages portraits are used to reflect the subject but also the time period that the subject inhabits, with secret messages, religious affiliations and iconography woven into the piece. We want to take this forward and use the main figurative element reflect these messages into a powerful piece.”

London-based artist, Josh Stika, aka Stika, has just opened his latest show in London’s Hoxton Hotel. Neon typography is in abundance, heavily influenced by lyrics from ’90s dance tunes. We got a few words from him about his career to date, the haters, ‘selling out’ and who he’d love to work with in the future.

VNA: So can you tell us a bit more about your new show, where, when, etc?

Stika: The exhibition is at The Hoxton Hotel, Shoreditch. It launches on the 19th of November is up for 3 months in the build up to the bespoke ‘Stika’ hotel room opening in late January.

As a solo show I aimed to make it as diverse as possible to ensure that anyone visiting doesn’t feel like they’re looking at the same piece/style 30 times over. I dabbled with the idea of a ‘group solo’ show – then I just realised this made it look like I had multiple-personality disorder so I let that one go…

New York-based artist Phil Frost is opening his upcoming solo show with Galeria Javier Lopez in Madrid on 26th of November 2014. Being his first solo show with the gallery, as well as first in Europe, we’re very excited to see the works that legendary artist created for this event.

Frost became famous for his street installations around NYC back in 90s. He would find a perfect location, take measures of the place, and than carefully create work in his studio before placing and leaving them in public. Usually painting on panels this is where he shaped up his recognizable imagery that he’s been famous for. Though flat and intuitive at first, his complex works have a lot of depth he achieves with layering numerous coats of paint with his iconic forms and imagery. Mixing different mediums, different techniques and ways of applying and manipulating paint, his visual language consists of unique typography as well as repetitive mask-like shapes that float over bright colored background. “Intuitive Mathematics” will stay on view until 4th of February.

On October 11th, 2501 will round up his month long art residency in Miami, with an opening of a solo show “Nomadic Experiment – Tons of Tools” at Product81 gallery. Organized by the gallery and Yo Amo 305 in partnership with Fordistas, these art residencies so far included Axel Void, Jufe, Pastel, Elian, Franco Fassoli Jaz, etc.

For this show Italian artist stepped up his game, changed his sharp line work into more abstract, expressive ones, and created only large size canvases from 2x2m up to 6x2m. Constantly on the move with his “Nomadic Experiment” project, this month long residency allowed artist to experiment thoroughly with materials and concepts. Creating more time consuming, layered works, further manipulating his familiar forms seen on his murals worldwide, 2501 created some of his strongest, most serious works for this show.

Richard & Le Feuvre is a new gallery opening in Geneve, Switzerland with a big group show titled Paper Party 2. Exhibiting around 50 original works on paper by 11 artists from all over the globe, the idea of this show is to present the diversity of urban and graffiti related art to the local art lovers.

With most of the featured artists having strong roots in graffiti movement, this exhibition shows the variety of styles and directions that it can lead to. The strong lineup consisting of known names that never exhibited before, is the proven recipe for a successful exhibit.

From the abstract graffiti of Mist, the surrealistic comic like works of Alexöne Dizac, Jeff Soto‘s low brow inspired works, steampunk imagery of Pixel Pancho, Sowat‘s abstract calligraphy style, the pop explosions of Andrew McAttee, the wide range of styles and works guarantee an interesting install and show.

Maya Hayuk was recently vin Cologne, Germany, opening a solo show “Alles Klar” with Die Kunsagentin gallery, as well as having a mural reveal / print release party with Arty Farty gallery. We just got these photos by Klaus Dyba of her indoor mural/installation inside Arty Farty artspace, showing her latest acid neon woven masterpiece. Using thick layers of fluorescent paint, NYC based artist created this symmetric signature piece that worked as a perfect backdrop for a party that was organized. Along with mural reveal and solo show opening, Sept 4th was the official release date of her newest limited edition screenprint, premiere of a the short film “Chemical Trails” by Landy about Maya’s work on the infamous Bowery wall last year, as well as a big party with DJ’s Sid Vaga and Tito Wun.